


anywhere I'm with you is home

by FullmetalChords



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, Goodbyes, Homecoming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-20
Updated: 2016-03-20
Packaged: 2018-05-27 23:45:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6304885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FullmetalChords/pseuds/FullmetalChords
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nat Hawke and Anders say goodbye, then hello, with the words that mean the most. </p><p>(Custom f!Hawke)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> turns out this is the second fic I've written with these two revolving around Skyhold, but this one is much better than the last. At least I think so. :P
> 
> Written as a Tumblr prompt for the "I love you" meme... @kirkwallgirl requested "Goodbye" and "Hello," and this ended up as the result.

The sun was not yet up outside, but their shack in the Hinterlands was filling with streaks of gray as Natalie Hawke crawled out of bed. They’d been here nearly three months – the cabin they now resided in was high in the mountains, left sitting empty when its former occupants had fled from the warring Templars and mages. It was remote enough that no one might notice smoke coming from the chimney, but near enough that they could still lend their aid to mages and refugees that needed help or healing. Not that Nat would be much help with that anymore.

The dog stirred as she pulled on her boots by the door. Her old mabari – adopted as a pup in Lothering, now middle-aged with grey around the muzzle – let out a whine, padding over to rest his face on her knee.

“Oh, Galeforce,” Nat sighed, momentarily abandoning her boots to scratch the place behind his ears. “Don’t make that face at me. You know you can’t come.”

The dog did _not_ seem to acknowledge this, boofing in soft protest before flopping down onto her other boot.

“Gale,” Nat said, keeping her voice low, so as to not wake the man still asleep behind the partition. “We’ve been over this. You’ve got to stay and take care of him for me.” Her voice quaked, and she took a deep breath to steady it again. She knelt before the dog, resting her forehead against his. “Make sure he’s eating enough, and that he’s sleeping well… wake him if he has bad dreams…”

Dammit, she was tearing up already. She’d promised herself she wouldn’t do this.

“Everything I won’t be here to do,” she ended in a whisper. “I’m counting on you, old friend. Both of us can’t leave him behind.” She stroked the dog’s neck, kissing his nose before enfolding her oldest companion in a tight hug. “Okay?”

Galeforce whined again, but he nudged her shoulder with his face, seemingly agreeing to her terms. Then he got up, trotting out the front door of their cabin, leaving Nat to pull on her other boot, lacing it tightly.

“Weren’t you going to wake me?”

She turned in surprise at the sound of the familiar voice, the familiar lanky figure pulling back the curtain of their sleep area. Anders was a little unsteady on his bare feet, sleeves of his tunic trailing past his fingers as he rubbed the sleep from his eyes. Even disheveled and half-asleep, the sight of him made her heart ache.

“Of course I was,” Nat soothed, crossing the room to stand by him. She reached out to touch him, to lace her fingers with his, trying her hardest not to think about when they would next be this close. “You just looked so peaceful… I couldn’t bring myself to ruin it for you sooner than I had to.” Last night had been the first in a fortnight that Anders hadn’t woken in the middle of the night screaming, weeping into her lap about the darkspawn, the Calling, the curse in his blood calling him underground to die in the darkness.

That had been the most of their worries until Varric’s letter had arrived three days earlier. When he’d brought the world crashing down around their ears yet again with just a few simple words. Corypheus. Inquisition. Wardens. Varric, that master of words, had known exactly the things to say to make her leave this haven she’d found with the man she loved. But it didn’t make it any easier.

Anders looked down at their hands, then away, at some unknown point over her shoulder.

“And… you’re quite sure you don’t need me to come?” he asked. “You might need healing or… or fireballs…”

The words coaxed a thin smile from her, but it was futile. They both knew it. They’d argued heavily over it that first night, Varric’s letter lying on the table between them. Anders insisting she couldn’t face Corypheus on her own after last time; Nat screaming that she refused to walk him into a Chantry trap, no matter what Varric said about the Inquisition. They’d fought, and they’d cried, until finally, holding each other, Anders had given in. Nat would go alone.

“You’d hate it at Skyhold,” she said, slipping too easily into the airy tone she used so often. “Too much snow, too many Templars… not to mention it’s nearly spring. You love spring in the Hinterlands. And-and Commander Whiskers is going to have her kittens soon, you’d miss your chance to name them…”

Tears were prickling the corners of her eyes even as she spoke. Every bit of evidence she used to make Anders stay only made her lose her resolve to go. Maker’s grey beard, the unfairness of it all. Corypheus was supposed to be someone else’s problem. Hadn’t she already proved how rubbish she was at saving the world? How could Varric call her there so she could fail yet again?

Anders’s arms were encircling her before she realized it, his body still warm from the bed. The whiff of elfroot and lyrium that permanently lingered on his skin made her homesick already, and she clung tighter, filling her lungs with him. 

“You’re right,” he said, in that same forced light tone. “Someone does have to keep those cats fed.” His fingers the top of her head and he stroked along her braid once before he pulled away with a frown. “Will you… will you let me braid your hair before you go?”

A laugh burst from Nat’s lips at the request, though her eyes brimmed over at the same moment. “You’d think I’d be better at doing my own hair by now,” she gasped, hurriedly wiping the tears away. She always plaited her hair in a hurry, leaving her head lumpy-looking and the end of her braid scraggly. Yet somehow whenever Anders did it, her braid was tidy and even. She liked to joke that it was magic, and Anders would waggle his fingers in reply, quipping that he _had_ learned how in the Circle.

She dropped down at the foot of the bed, Anders sitting behind her and picking her earlier attempt loose with a comb, and she felt the lump growing in her throat again, thinking of their stupid braid joke. She ought to be better at this. Carver used to say all she was good at was running. Why did leaving Anders here, even if only for a little while, feel so impossible? 

Anders gathered the loose copper strands of her hair in his hands, holding them gently. “Your old look, then? Just so Varric will recognize you.”

Nat thought of the single braid she used to wear down her back, when she was Champion – and the word brought all the weight of her old position back, all at once. She thought she’d escaped being Champion, that title that came with all the responsibility she’d never asked for and couldn’t handle. She’d left that life behind in the ruins of Kirkwall. She’d been free, she’d been with Anders, helping mages, making a real difference for once… But Varric calling her back, insisting that the world didn’t need Natalie Hawke, it needed the _Champion of Kirkwall_ …

“No,” she said sharply. “No, I…” She inhaled deeply, Anders resting a steadying hand on her shoulder. She reached back, squeezing it. “Whatever you want,” she found herself saying. “Just… make sure it’ll stay out of my face.” The soft kiss on the top of her head surprised her, a shivering drop of warm liquid that dropped into the pit of her stomach, and she laughed again, softly, just so she wouldn’t cry again.

They’d been through so much together. Too much. More than any one person could be asked to handle on their own. She’d lost her sister, her mother, nearly lost her life… Nat remembered standing in Lowtown, staring at Anders’s back, faced with the command to execute him. She’d nearly lost him to Kirkwall’s cruelty. He’d nearly lost _her_ to the pressures of an office she never asked for. How, after it all, could she leave him behind, even temporarily? How was she supposed to cope with the idea that she might never come back? That _he_ might not be here to welcome her when or if she returned?

Anders’s fingers were gentle in her hair, working quickly, and abruptly he stopped, tying off his work with a bit of thread. “There, love. How’s that?”

She reached back to feel his handiwork. Her hair had been braided back tightly at the sides of her head, with a much looser weave at the top. The whole thing had been tied back, the ends of her hair as wild and tangled as ever, but it all was well out of her face.

“I hope it’ll keep,” she said, almost surprised to hear her voice thin and watery. She took another deep breath, not wanting to sound upset in front of Anders. As difficult as this was for her, it was undoubtedly worse for him. He was, after all, the one being left behind. “That is… thank you, darling.” She patted his leg from her place on the floor, the only part of him she could easily reach, before struggling to her feet. The light outside was growing brighter by the second, and it would be only too soon before the sun was up. 

“Natalie…” She heard the same strain in his voice that had been in hers, and she turned at the door. “Love,” Anders started again, his head bowing as he took her hands in his. “I don’t want to say… that is, I won’t…”

She heard the word in his tone, even though it never left his lips. _Goodbye._ Neither of them had dared to use it regarding this business, even though they knew there was no guarantee.

“Let’s not say it,” Nat said, her hand sliding along the roughness of his jawline. “There’s no need.” Maker, everything about him was so familiar. The scrape of stubble against her palm, the curve of his nose, the miniscule dent between his eyebrows as they knit together. Anders’s face was _home_ to her. More than any town, manor, or hovel had ever been. He was all the home she’d ever needed.

Anders’s eyes shut, and the shuddering breath he drew sounded like a sob.

“I love you,” he said, bowing his head, and Nat didn’t have to think about tilting her face up to meet his. This kiss… it tasted like salt, his tears falling on her face, but it felt like memories, and familiarity, all the love and tenderness and support he’d given her in the last seven years wrapped up in a single moment. Nat clung to it, cherishing it, cherishing _him_ , because if this was the last time she would see her home, she would leave them both with one good memory. Her own “I love you” was pressed into his mouth, over and over, repeated in the space between their mouths every time they breathed. She was trying to fill Anders up with it, to sustain him in the long, difficult weeks to come.

Too soon they had to part, for the sun was rising at her back, the outside world beckoning her away. For a long moment they looked at each other, fingertips chasing the other’s tears. Anders’s amber eyes wouldn’t leave her face.

“Come home,” he pled.

She wanted to swear she would, or to crack a joke about absence making the heart grow fonder. Instead, she pressed one last lingering kiss to his cheek.

“Stay safe,” she whispered in his ear before pulling away. She picked up the pack by the door – Anders had packed it with her the night before, filling it with poultices and poisons and everything she could possibly need. And, hoisting it onto her back, she was out the door. It took everything she had not to turn back and watch Anders watch her go.

She could hear Galeforce bay in the distance before she rounded a corner, Anders’s tears still drying on her face.


	2. Chapter 2

The cabin was still standing, she noted with relief as she dismounted from her borrowed horse. The hum of cicadas was thick in the air, the day’s heat fading away as the sun began to sink behind the mountains. Five months she’d been gone – she’d missed the spring and summer with him, all those fucking errands the Inquisition had sent her on – and the only thought in her head was a desperate prayer that she’d find him alive and well in the spot she’d left him.

Nat still shivered at the thought of the Fade, all these weeks later. Not being a mage, she’d never understood this realm that Anders knew so deeply, the place Justice had crystallized in. Being trapped in it, even with the demons and the Nightmare… she’d been thinking of them both the whole time.

Thinking of them when faced with faceless taunts about Anders’s death. Thinking of them to keep her sane when demonic spiders swarmed her and nipped at her flesh. Clinging desperately to the thought of Anders, alone and waiting in this place, when faced with the reality that one of them – her or Stroud – would be left behind here for the rest of their days.

She’d stared into the face of the implacable, impassive Inquisitor, the towering Qunari woman, and she’d silently begged, _Please don’t make me stay. Please let me come back to him_. 

It had been Stroud in the end – noble, stalwart Stroud who’d sacrificed his life so she might be spared. She repaid him by giving up even more of her freedom, making the trek up to Weisshaupt to help the rest of the Wardens understand what had happened at Adamant, and to help them arm themselves against Corypheus. But there was only one Warden she’d ever cared about saving, and he wasn’t in the Anderfels.

She was hiking up the mountain now, taking strides as long as her legs would allow. She could smell wood smoke and roasting meat, and when she rounded the final corner, the most welcome sight met her eyes. 

Galeforce was dozing at the foot of the steps, one of his ears idly flicking off a mosquito. And Anders was sitting by the dog’s side, stroking Commander Whiskers behind the ears and reading a scrap of paper she recognized from her time on the road. She could barely remember the words she’d scribbled on it before leaving Adamant: _Alive and well. To Weisshaupt for Stroud. Back soon. Stay safe._ The rest of the page, she recalled, had been covered with stray doodles of kittens, curly-haired Templars being mauled by mabari, and hearts.

Just the sight of Anders, safe, whole, smiling gently at her words, was enough to make her forget the horrors she’d undergone for the Inquisition. 

“I didn’t have time for a proper letter,” she said, startling him into looking up. “Just as well, I never really know what to write, anyway. Thought I’d leave that kind of stuff up to Varric…”

Her speech was interrupted by Anders crashing into her, knocking her off her feet. They both landed in the long grass, Galeforce barking happily behind them, but all that mattered was Anders in her arms, peppering kisses all over her face, her heart leaping in her chest as she pulled him to her.

“Nat,” Anders gasped after a few moments, his hands raking through the loose ends of her hair, “oh, Maker… is it really you?”

She was too busy looking him over to reply. Anders’s hair had gotten much longer, his stubble having turned into a patchy beard – but he looked no less thin than he’d been when she had left, his clothes mended and cared-for, and the warmth in his smile made half her nightmares about him fade away. 

“It’s me,” she agreed, but the dam was threatening to burst. “I’m back, it’s… oh _Anders,_ I love you so much. I didn’t mean to be gone so…”

The flood of words was swallowed up by Anders’s kiss, fierce and loving all at once, and something in her clicked back into place. His lips, his breath, his body all welcomed her back home, and she drank him in, letting his love replace her lingering worries and fears. “Anders,” Nat gasped again when he surfaced for air, but she pulled him back in, unable to say anything more. There was nothing more to be said. There would be time enough for them to share stories about everything that had happened when they were apart, but now… now was about their connection. Now was about her love for him, and his for her. Reminding her that being without Anders for so long ever again was unacceptable, no matter how many immortal magisters might have been threatening the world. 

Natalie Hawke smiled, pulling Anders close to her in the late summer sun. No matter what remaining surprises and terrors life had in store for them, she refused to face them without him by her side.

She would rather face fifty Nightmares than be without her home ever again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stop on by @phoenixrei if you enjoyed! There's plenty more about Nat in my #natalie-hawke tag, if any of you are curious. Also lots and lots of me being complete Anders trash.


End file.
